Repository:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

Abstract: The Walter Kohn Papers contain materials related to the career of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Walter Kohn and is primarily
comprised of physics-related research notes, professional travel files, and correspondence.

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Walter Kohn is a Professor Emeritus of Physics at UCSB, with an emphasis in theoretical physics. On October 13, 1998 he was
awarded half of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his development of the density-functional theory.

Kohn was born on March 9, 1923 to Jewish parents in Vienna, Austria. He lived for a year and a half under the Austrian Nazi
regime until he fled as a refugee first to England in 1939 and later to Canada in 1940. Both of his parents, unable to leave
Austria, became victims of the Holocaust. Throughout his life he has maintained a strong Jewish identity and he was instrumental
in the establishment of the Judaic Studies program at UC San Diego. He also has been involved in social justice issues, including
participating in the American Physical Society's Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists which petitions foreign
governments and fellow scientists to end the persecution of scientists.

He attended University of Toronto from 1942 to 1945 where he received his undergraduate degree in mathematics and physics
and his graduate degree in applied mathematics. During 1945-46, between his studies for the two degrees, he also completed
a year of service in the Canadian Infantry, fighting in the last year of World War II. He then attended Harvard where he was
awarded a PhD in physics in 1948. After graduation Kohn accepted his first position at Harvard as an instructor of physics.

In 1950 Kohn was offered a position at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) where he would work
for the next ten years. While at Carnegie Mellon his research focused on Bloch electrons and semiconductor physics. Before
starting, however, he was awarded a National Research Council fellowship and as a result postponed his appointment for two
years to do research in Copenhagen. This would be the first of many temporary research positions he would hold abroad. He
also later worked for months at a time in Tel Aviv, Israel; Les Houches, France; and Zurich, Switzerland; among other countries.
During the last few weeks before beginning at Carnegie, Kohn was invited to work under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer
at Princeton to finish his project begun in Copenhagen. During the summers of 1953 and 1954 Kohn also worked at Bell Labs
doing research in solid state physics.

Kohn's career with the University of California began in 1960 when he left Carnegie to begin working at UC San Diego. It was
while at UCSD that he began his work on density functional theory.

Kohn was invited in 1979 to come to UC Santa Barbara to assist in the establishment of the Institute of Theoretical Physics
at UCSB, now known as the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, and to work as its founding director. Here he would continue
his work on density functional theory and other subjects. He held this position until 1984 when he became a full time professor
in UCSB's Department of Physics. He has been a Professor Emeritus since 1991.

Also noteworthy is that throughout his life Kohn has been an outspoken advocate of peace and has opposed the use of nuclear
weapons. Throughout the Cold War he worked towards US-Soviet nuclear disarmament. He was on the faculty advisory committee
for the Global Peace and Security Program at UCSB and the affiliated Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He actively
advocated, although unsuccessfully, for the removal of the University of California as manager of Lawrence-Livermore National
Laboratories. Kohn was also was a consultant for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, based out of Santa Barbara.

Scope and Content of Collection

The Walter Kohn Papers contain materials related to the career of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Walter Kohn and are primarily
comprised of physics-related research notes, professional travel files, and correspondence. Also included are files related
to Kohn's other professional interests, including Peace and Security Studies and Judaic Studies, as well as class notes from
his student days and research-related reprints of articles written by other scientists.

Arrangement

The collection contains the following series:

General

Autobiographical and bibliographical materials, including day planners from 1980-1984. (Box 1)

Primarily professional correspondence, including a substantial amount of interoffice mail, with some personal correspondence
intermixed. Also includes drafts of public letters/statements as well as some clippings and miscellaneous ephemera related
to correspondence. Some travel related materials are included as well in relation to correspondence. Some correspondence is
also interspersed in professional files.

Files related to professional involvement in both the Physics Department and other departments on campus, as well as involvement
in professional organizations.

Professional Lecture Notes (See above for Class Notes)

Taken, 1952-1960 (Box 41)
Given, 1952-1959, 1976 (Box 42)

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 1968-1978 (Box 43)

Judaic Studies Files, 1972-1978 (Boxes 44-47)

Files from the development of the Judaic Studies program at UCSD.

General Files, 1978-1986 (Boxes 48-51)

Kohn's alphabetical file related to professional activities. Also includes related correspondence. Includes records from the
Institute of Theoretical Physics and the National Academy of Sciences.

Global Peace and Security (GPS), 1984-1993 (Boxes 52-61)

Includes information about Kohn's involvement as well as general program information.
Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), 1983-1987
Part of the GPS Department. Also includes information from his participation in the chancellor search committee of
1986 which resulted in the hiring of Barbara Uehling.

General Files, 1987-1992 (Boxes 62-64)

Includes files on USA/USSR Faculty Exchange Program and Direct Relief International assistance in St. Petersburg that Kohn
assisted in organizing.

Trip Files, 1984-1997 (Arranged chronologically. Records from older trips were not separated by Kohn and are interspersed in professional
files.) (Boxes 65-98)

Includes correspondence, trip planning notes, meeting notes, itineraries, article reprints, written reports, expense reports
and ephemera (postcards, university brochures, maps, etc.) primarily related to business travel locally, nationally, and internationally.
Some photographs are included with post-visit correspondence. Some records also related to personal travel between business
trips and on sabbaticals and on cancelled travel plans.